The Ghana 2008 Presidential/Parliamentary elections has been over since about 12 hours ago and I find it interesting that many of the leading Western media outlets have not made a mention of Ghana 2008 Elections. Perhaps, Ghana does not exist on their radar screen. Ghana, like the rest of black Africa will only pop-up on their monitoring screens when over 1,000 people have butchered themselves or over 300,000 people are dying of starvation, or over 500,000 people are displaced by a civil war.

I would quickly analyse the international 24/7 news TV channels I monitor:

BBC World News: The BBC has been mentioning the Ghana 2008 elections on their TV and radio world services respectively, and also a prominent mention on their news website, just before the elections. The BBC even has a web page dedicated to the Ghana 2008 elections. I am not surprised about the BBC. They are the biggest international broadcaster and have more permanent reporters in more countries than any other broadcaster. More so, Ghana is a former British colony so events in Ghana and other members of the Commonwealth appear to be even of more particular interest to the BBC. Kudos.

CNN International: I am not sure whether they sent reporters to Ghana or not. If they did, the reporters either cannot find a power outlet to connect their equipment and upload the news or they have not found anything news-worthy [yet]. The Elections have been very peaceful and so I reckon CNN has nothing to report. Had 100 people lost their lives due to the elections, Ghana will be in their leading news headlines. For now, Ghana does not exist to them. The only mention I have seen from CNN is found on the Africa News archive of their website and it is even an AP report. Shame on CNN.

Sky News: This TV channel in my view is more British than the BBC. Their reports are more of local British news, so I would skip them. Note though that Zimbabwe is a permanent feature on their reportage since Zimbabwe is bad news personified.

EuroNews: The name says its all - European News. Need I say more?

This same station would feature Congo DR engulfed in civil war, Zimbabwe fast descending into chaos or a Kenya and its people butchering each other.

AlJazeera English: Ghana 2008 Elections appeared on their leading news broadcast on 7th December the election day. They had a live report from Accra the capital of Ghana during their news broadcast, and had a round-up of the day’s event after the country had voted. AlJazeera English also had leading report about the subject matter on their news website.

*The news channels listed are the English-speaking ones, and listed in the order they appear on DSTV.


Credit: Oluniyi David Ajao (www.davidajao.com)